TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS

Namibia has been ranked as the country with the best road infrastructure in Africa. Capital funding for the development of the country’s infrastructure to achieve a safe, reliable and affordable transport infrastructure and to position the country as a logistics hub for the Southern African Development Community remains a top priority for the Namibian government.

TOLLING POSTPONED

The RFA announced in June 2023 that it will postpone its proposed toll roads programme until further notice. The fund said in a news release this decision was taken because of the prevailing economic climate, coupled with high interest rates and inflation. A feasibility study conducted in 2022 found that 21 roads could generate N$5.8 billion for capital projects and road maintenance over a five-year period. The RFA, however, pointed out that the revenue collected from the current road user charges (N$4.2 billion for the 2023/24 financial year) is insufficient to fund the need for road network maintenance, resulting in a funding gap of 22% of the allocated budget.

AIR TRANSPORT

An amount of N$100 million has been made available for the expansion of the apron at Windhoek’s Hosea Kutako International Airport over the next two years. Several international airlines resumed operations to Namibia during 2022 and the Hosea Kutako International Airport is currently served by Ethiopian Airlines (operating flights from Addis Ababa), Qatar Airlines (offering flights from Doha) and Eurowings, the leisure carrier of the Lufthansa Group. Eurowings has increased its number of flights between Frankfurt and Windhoek from seven flights a week to ten flights a week. The airline has also reintroduced three flights a week between Frankfurt and Victoria Falls and launched a new route from Frankfurt to Mbombela (Kruger National Park) with a short stopover in Windhoek.

REGIONAL AND DOMESTIC FLIGHTS

FlyNamibia operates daily flights from Hosea Kutako International Airport to Cape Town and O.R. Tambo International Airport (Johannesburg). Airlink, which acquired a 40% strategic equity holding in FlyNamibia in September 2022, operates daily return flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town to Windhoek. The airline also operates daily flights between Johannesburg and Walvis Bay.

South African Airways resumed flights between Johannesburg and Windhoek in December 2022 after it suspended all flights in March 2020. South African low-cost airline FlySafair plans to expand its regional network with daily flights between Johannesburg and Windhoek from the third quarter of 2023. TAAG Angola Airlines links Luanda to Windhoek with regular flights.

FlyNamibia operates domestic flights from Windhoek’s Eros Airport to Ondangwa, Rundu, Katima Mulilo and Oranjemund. The airline expanded its domestic network when it introduced flights between Eros Airport and Walvis Bay International Airport in October 2022.

RAILWAYS

The government continues to invest heavily in the upgrading of the country’s 2,687-km rail network to comply with the minimum Southern African Development Community (SADC) standards of 18.5 tonnes per axle load with design speeds of up to 100 km per hour for passenger trains and 80 km per hour for freight trains.

Following the completion of the 107.5-km railway line upgrade between Walvis Bay to Kranzberg, the government is engaging with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to secure funding for the upgrading of the Kranzberg-Tsumeb-Grootfontein section of the railway line which forms part of the Trans-Cunene Corridor. The upgrade will be executed in two phases: Kranzberg to Otjiwarongo over a distance of 207 km, as well as Otjiwarongo to Tsumeb and Otavi to Grootfontein.

The final feasibility study for the extension of the railway network from Grootfontein to Katima Mulilo has found that the project is viable from a technical, environmental, legal, financial and economic perspective. The 772-km-long Trans-Zambezi railway line will facilitate the transportation of minerals from the Zambian Copperbelt to the port of Walvis Bay by linking new mines and mining activities to the railway network along the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor. The project will cost an estimated US$2.3 billion (N$46 billion).

PORTS

Namibia’s two harbours are owned and managed by the Namibian Ports Authority (Namport). Walvis Bay on the central coast is the country’s main harbour and a hub of corridors to Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, southern Angola, Zambia and the southern Democratic Republic of Congo. Lüderitz Harbour, 254 nautical miles south of Walvis Bay, primarily serves the southern regions of Namibia and South Africa’s Northern Cape province.

The number of vessels calling at the two ports increased from 1,592 in 2021/22 to 1,636 in 2022/23. The growth in vessel calls during the past two years was mainly due to an increase in petroleum, dry bulk, foreign fishing, roll-on-roll-off, passenger as well as research vessels.

WALVIS BAY CORRIDOR GROUP

The Walvis Bay Corridor Group, a public-private partnership (PPP), is a service and facilitation centre promoting the benefits of using the four corridors from the ports of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz to and from Southern Africa.

Cargo volumes entering and leaving Namibia along the group’s four corridors increased from 1,639,510 tonnes in 2021/2022 to 2,464,123 tonnes in 2022/23. Volumes from South Africa grew by 42%, from 771,852 tonnes to 1,093,569 tonnes. The increase was largely due to the export of manganese ore from the Northern Cape province through the port of Lüderitz.

LOGISTICS

An efficient logistics sector with international links which ensures the efficient operation of the supply chains of local, regional and international customers is served by the country’s excellent transport infrastructure. Warehousing, clearing and freight forwarding, cargo handling, stevedoring, overnight cross-border and domestic courier services are amongst the diversity of services provided.

VITAL CONTACTS